The Zhitong Finance App learned that data.ai released the ranking of Chinese game manufacturers and app overseas revenue for September 2023. The top 5 publishers on the list were unchanged from last month, in that order: Miha Tour, Tencent (00700), Diandian Interactive, 37 Entertainment (002555.SZ), and Lilith. Pixel Heroes (Mosaic Heroes), an RPG game owned by game publisher EFUN, was officially launched in Japan. It successfully helped parent company Baotong Technology's revenue surge by 266%, and successfully rose to 13th place in the ranking. SP-Game released the MMORPG New Journey to Moonlight Thieves in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and some Southeast Asian countries, and immediately topped the Google Play download list in the Hong Kong, China and Taiwan markets. The publisher also jumped to 20th place with the revenue generated by the game. Other publishers that have risen in the rankings include Shell Wood Games, IM30, IGG, Mu Tong Technology, Ling Xi Entertainment, Xindong Network, and Hero Games.
Japan has always been one of the overseas markets most valued by Chinese mobile game publishers. Among them, there is no shortage of vendors such as NetEase, Music Elements, and Youai Mutual Entertainment that have been deeply involved in the Japanese market for a long time and have achieved results. However, as domestic experience in going overseas to Japan has accumulated more and more, more and more publishers have begun to increase their investment in the Japanese market. For example, EFUN launched the Pixel Heroes daily service version, and the game name, icon, and store description were all localized and optimized. In just one month, it received over 19 million US dollars in local revenue, second only to the South Korea and Taiwan markets. Coincidentally, Hero Games ranked 29th in the overseas revenue list of Chinese mobile game publishers this month, up 4 places from last month, also thanks to its new RPG, Knights of Saint Laurent. The game ranked 2nd in the Japanese iOS game download list.
Summary of China's mobile game overseas performance in September 2023: Miha Gaming dominated the overseas revenue list.The top 30 products on the Chinese mobile game list this year attracted a total of US$7.1 billion in overseas markets, an increase of 1.5% over the previous year. Miha Tour's two phenomenal games, Honkai: Star Rail (Star Rail) and Genshin Impact (Genshin Impact), took the top two places in China's mobile game overseas revenue list. Together, the two generated about 140 million US dollars in overseas revenue. Genshin also achieved a 34% month-on-month increase in monthly revenue through card pool updates for new characters in the new 4.1 version.
After GODDESS OF VICTORY: NIKKE (Goddess of Victory: NIKKE), distributed by Tencent's overseas distribution team Level Infinite, launched the NieR:Automata linkage campaign — OUTER: Automata on August 31, successfully surpassed 50 million US dollars in revenue in September, rising 4 places, and reached 5th place. The Three Kingdoms · Strategy Edition began a new round of the PK season “Hero Gathering” in September, and updated the new martial arts and events. The response was great, helping to increase game revenue by 130% over the previous month, reaching 20 million US dollars. Azur Lane (Azur Lane) also relied on a series of 6th anniversary events to achieve significant revenue growth, returning to the top 30 overseas revenue list. It's worth mentioning that the main growth market for all three games came from Japan.
The top 30 newcomers to the list in this issue are Moonlight Thieves published by SP-Game. From its launch to September 30, it has received a total of 260,000 downloads and over 10 million US dollars in revenue in the Chinese, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Southeast Asian markets.